Well, it seems he didn't. You would think that hanging around his Dad in the carpenter shop all those years and given who he "really" was, he could have invented power tools at least.

Those Roman procurators monopolized the patents throughout Judea.

Sure, Leonardo could paint the Mona Lisa, design structures and envision helicopters and tanks, but I'd like to see him feed a multitude with seven fishes and seven loaves of bread.

Oh, and thanks SB and DC for clearing those up.

(Personally, without meaning any disrespect to the Catholic belief, I think Jesus is a much more persuasive and convincing Christian or prophet or teacher of good faith if I view him as a human; not a God with human traits, but a human, born from a womb, whose fundamental and most important concern was doing good through actions of goodness.)

Actually, according to Dan Brown, he's alive and well and living with Elvis Presley in a tiki hut on Maui.

Well, if you do view [Jesus] as human, then how do you account for the miracles he performed?

I'm not a Christian. I could never make the commitments it demands of me, just in the same sense I could never become a communist, in the sense that capitalism bores me. What are religions but simply ideological manipulations of the Many? And although Christianity has purposeful and appealing ends, its means throughout history have done little good for its name, and its means today ask me to turn contrary to all I believe in.

I think miracles as told in the Bible are meant to be taken allegorically, were intended allegorically, and hold much resonance (and more sense) allegorically. The principle beliefs of Christianity are good and effective in sparking a sense of goodness and going about life in a good, beneficial way. (Good and beneficial as regards allowing humanity to continue to exist, to evolve naturally.)

But sparking a sense of goodness stops at teaching; when you tell a person how to fish, you don't then catch the fish for him and eliminate the point of your lesson.

Those miracles are, as all allegories are in some way, a lie. Necessary lies, but still lies. It seems absurd to me, in this day and age especially, to hold the miracles in a literal way, to keep Christianity in its cage of ultimate mystifier.

There is apparently enough historical and scientific evidence that Jesus did exist. That too may or may not be a lie, I don't know, I don't necessarily care. But I think it is beneficial, in the same way it is beneficial to look at Ghandi and other selected individuals whose philosophies present insight into humanity and possible solutions to its continuity (it is also mightily beneficial to teach the readings of Mein Kempf, and illustrate in those teachings exactly why it, the book, is not benificial to the human race.)

Though I am in no position to attack such beliefs, and although I will defend anybody's right to believe in them, it seems odd that people should look upto God, or the Gods, or some Higher Power, instead of to their own. It's very bleak, really. And just reading or hearing the way we write or talk about God, the Christian God, goes some ways to illustrate the flaws and deficiencies in our society: for starters, we refer to God as a He, as Him; 'He' is a product of a patriarchal society, regardless of moral intentions; all actions of war and oppression have been declared in the name of God by men, by individuals, on the oppressed Many; 'He' is the product of an imbalanced world, and 'His' creation and sustained existence by 'Us' adds further to such imbalancing.

Those are my opinions, since you asked for them; John Fowles goes to convincing, though by no means persuasive, lengths in The Aristos in elaborating upon what I've written here. It's convincing because it would take a brave, literate, articulate man to deny Fowles's logic, his pragmatism, his faith, in Evolutionism; it isn't persuasive, because it's the kind of writing (he's a fantastic linguist, and a self-conscious one too) you only connect with if you already feel the same way. He says in his preface he's not interested in converting people to this faith or that faith. Throughout, from the beginning, and as the important final message, his emphasis is on individuality, The Individual, the importance of knowing oneself in a world full of selves. Christianity, among many other things, threatens that.

P.S. We are now one day past Da Vinci's death. Who died today?

Peter Pan

Peter Pan never grows up, so how can he die?

Peter Pan never grows up, so how can he die?

Don't pick on DE NIRO. He got confused with this and one of the games.... the question was what he used his PP for.

I'll give BOGEY 2 minutes to reply to this..

If you want to get rid of the games section then do it,i couldn't give a shit...

If you want to get rid of the games section then do it,i couldn't give a shit...

I'll give BOGEY 2 minutes to reply to this..

What if she doesn't respond within two minutes?

Yeah but it doesn't mean i care for them,Even thought i still post in there,i lost interst in them long ago...Time to think of some more games..

Good for You..keep It Up

If you want to get rid of the games section then do it,i couldn't give a shit...

I think Bogey secretly has the hots for De Niro and thats why she always picks on him